Breaking Through

by A. M. Hartnett

  ‘So what are you going to do this month? And next month?’

  His question was gentle, but it rubbed her like sandpaper. He’d asked the question she’d avoided so far, the one that had been under her mother’s tone when she’d agreed to put money into Miranda’s account.

  She got up from the table and collected her cup and his, then returned to the sink.

  ‘I don’t know. I’ll have to figure something out, like everyone else.’

  ‘Let me –’

  ‘Don’t.’ She whirled around, a finger raised and pointing. ‘Don’t even think about finishing that sentence. If it gets that bad, I’ll send Eddie to Pictou to live with Mom. I’ll get any job I can, but I will not take your money.’

  Simon held up his hands. ‘I wasn’t offering. I was going to say, let me make some calls. You don’t have to work in the call centre for what I assume is barely minimum wage, and you don’t have to live with that.’

  He shot a pointed look at the ceiling. Miranda twisted the tea towel in her hands.

  ‘And what about Juliet?’

  ‘Juliet is Juliet’s problem.’

  ‘Oh, fuck off!’ She threw the towel at him and was disappointed that it only landed on his knee. She planted her hands on her hips to keep from grabbing the coffee pot and flinging it at his head. ‘That is so easy for you to say. Where did you dry out? Some fancy rehab centre in the mountains? How many times did you go? Who was counting on you to get your shit straight? Who put their lives on hold so you could get clean?’

  Simon shot out of his seat so quickly that Miranda panicked and tried to take a step back, but the edge of the counter dug into her back and there was nowhere to go once he was on top of her. He gripped the marble on either side of her and pushed his face into hers.

  ‘Since you seem to think that Juliet’s a special snowflake and no one could possibly understand how hard life would be if you actually dealt with her shit, let me tell you about the year I just had.’

  Miranda put her hands up against his chest. She didn’t want him this close, and she didn’t want to know what it was he had to tell her. Yes, she’d been horrible to him, but she needed him to be infallible. She wanted to drive him out of the room and keep all of her illusions, but he pushed forward.

  ‘After almost ten years, I walked away from the only job I’d been able to hold because it started to make me feel dirty, only to fall face-first into a goddamn national sideshow and have the media dig up skeletons I forgot I even had. I dealt with that by putting a steady cocktail of drugs and alcohol into my body until I ended up tens of thousands of dollars in debt and in the hospital. Since that day, I’ve had reminder after reminder of the people who are counting on me, beginning with a mother who kept –’

  He faltered, his voice breaking and his eyes shining as the tears came. Still, he went on.

  ‘Beginning with a mother who kept her mastectomy from me because she didn’t want me to worry myself back into a mess when her cancer returned, and ending with a woman I found waiting in the rain, who asked me to stay with her just last night because she needed me to. Now, please, by all means, look me in the face and tell me how poor Juliet is special and that I don’t know anything about fucking up your life for one more gram of coke.’

  Her fingers were so hot and itching against his chest and she wanted so badly to banish this thing he had laid upon her, but at the end of her arms, in her chest, she felt the crumbling begin. She closed her fist against his T-shirt as her face burned, and then pushed into his warmth as she cracked open.

  The tension that radiated from him evaporated as he closed his arms around her. He rested his cheek on the top of her head as she heaved quietly against him. He didn’t let her down. Even with the fresh wounds he had opened in front of her, Simon gave her the strength she needed.

  ‘I don’t know what to do,’ she said against him. ‘What can I do? We were supposed to be in this together, and now I’m supposed to take care of this house and a baby all on my own? Why can’t she just get her shit together and help me?’

  ‘Have you asked anyone else for help?’

  ‘Ask who? Ask my Mom to move back here just so I can have someone else?’ Ask the government? Not a chance. I don’t want anyone treating Eddie like he comes from some kind of broken home, or, worse, taking him away.’

  ‘I meant ask me. How long were you going to just keep letting me come over here like there’s nothing wrong?’

  She lifted her head and shook it. She never made it to his eyes, instead looking at the cleft above his lips. ‘I don’t think I ever would have told you.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because –’

  She caught herself before the truth came out. She wasn’t sure if she was ready to put words to it, let alone before him. Yet as he squeezed down on her shoulders, it was as if he was emptying her out like a tube of toothpaste.

  ‘Because I didn’t want you to leave. I meant what I said: being with you makes me feel awake for the few hours a day we’re together, and I didn’t want to lose that.’

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ he said, and as he enveloped her once more she caught the shine of his eyes welling up. ‘Jesus Christ, Miranda, I’m not going to leave. If you’d told me about this that night in the parking garage, I still would have told you to get in the car. I’m not –’

  His chest went still against her cheek as he stopped breathing, and the cinch he had her in tightened.

  ‘I’m not that guy any more. I don’t run.’

  Miranda sensed that he had said something important, words he’d been waiting a long time to say aloud. She felt the strength they gave him in the arms he wrapped tighter around her.

  ‘Look, I’m not going to get up your ass about Juliet again, at least not for now,’ he said quietly, ‘but I’m going to be paying attention, and I want you to talk to me.’

  ‘I don’t know if I can,’ she admitted. ‘I don’t … do feelings.’

  ‘Yeah, you do. You get mad as hell,’ he teased, and having loosened his grip he turned her around, against the counter. ‘The little guy is at the corner of his playpen watching.’

  ‘Oh, shit.’ Miranda rubbed the moisture from her lashes, but her attempt to move away was met with firm hands on her shoulders.

  ‘Go take a hot shower and I’ll stay down here with him.’

  ‘No, it’s OK –’

  ‘Look, just take fifteen minutes out for yourself. Loosen up, do your hair, find something adorable to wear so when you get out of my car every man who walks by hates my guts.’

  Though worried that he might have another run-in with Juliet, Miranda headed up the stairs.

  She wasn’t quite relieved, she had to admit as she lathered her hair, though she felt slightly less crazy, but it wasn’t on her outburst that she dwelt. She replayed his speech in her head. It was a good speech, if not one she entirely believed, but for now at least it was all she had to hold onto.

  Eddie had been sprung from baby jail and walked around the kitchen with his noisy corn-popper making a racket, but Simon seemed oblivious. He was engrossed in something on his phone.

  With Miranda’s entrance, he looked up with a scowl. ‘I hate to break our date tonight, but I’ve got a meeting in New Brunswick this afternoon. I don’t know if I’ll be back in time to get you.’

  Tears pricking her eyes, Miranda nodded and turned away. ‘That’s fine. No big deal.’

  ‘Miranda, don’t.’ He got up and wrapped his arms around her. ‘I’m not making excuses, and if timing works out I’ll be back for our usual date. If you weren’t working I’d take you along with me.’

  He rested his head against the top of hers and squeezed her, front to back.

  ‘I’d rather be with you than anywhere else, you know.’

  ‘I feel the same way,’ she whispered, afraid to say it too loud. She turned into another wonderful hug, then giggled as Eddie ran circles around them with his popper. ‘We should go. That noise is only irritating for s
o long, and then you black out to save your own sanity.’

  ‘I’ll be down in a few minutes. I’ve got to drop home so I’ll save the shower for then.’

  Once he was gone, Miranda stopped Eddie’s toy with her foot and squatted down.

  ‘All right, bub, time for another car ride,’ she told him, and had to admit that it was tempting to hook off work and go road-tripping with Simon, but that wouldn’t put money in the bank.

  She picked Eddie up and sat him on the edge of the counter. ‘Maybe we’ll get lucky and find a bag of money on the road or something.’

  Chapter Eleven

  The houses along the road were becoming fewer and far between. Simon wasn’t worried. This was about conducting their business out of sight, and Simon was just fine with that.

  If the morning’s email was any indication, Matthew Murray was about to do something stupid. He was about to tell Simon his secret in order to keep it. He was about to appeal to the emotions of a man who couldn’t afford to have them.

  Mr Reeve,

  I think it’s time we met.

  M. Murray.

  Simon had replied and told Murray to name the time and place, and immediately Murray came back and gave him them: that afternoon, in the park where Chris Eaton worked.

  The deeper into the backwoods, the closer to the park entrance he drove, the more Simon felt the last of the tension bleed out of his shoulders. He’d shut off the AC and rolled the windows down, and then he’d turned the radio up. He didn’t miss the amount of time he spent in the air since cutting professional ties with Jacques Taureau and his company, but he missed the long drives like these. He’d racked up the mileage across the entire country, driving across every province at least once in the last ten years and cutting into the US when he could. The first time had been from Ottawa to the house at Mont Carmel, and he’d found himself so content he’d laughed out loud and wondered why he had never done something like this before.

  The older he got and the more he drove, the more he understood those retirees who chugged along the TransCanada Highway pulling big trailers behind them. He could see himself twenty years down the road doing the same thing, passing through small towns and big cities until one of them called upon him to stop and settle, and then he’d do just that. A little house and a big yard, get himself a dog with a perpetually stupid look on its loyal face to ride shotgun, and just sit back and take a deep breath.

  It would have to be somewhere with a view, he decided, and big enough to accommodate a trailer that could be an art studio.

  He chuckled to himself as he opened the sunroof and wondered what Miranda’s reaction would be if she knew he had just deposited her in the middle of his domestic fantasy. He felt foolish for entertaining it, but there she was, older with a bit of grey streaking that chestnut hair, smiling but still as saucy as ever.

  The fantasy kept him from thinking about the scene that morning, and so he kept weaving it in his mind.

  ‘Maybe one day,’ he said out loud, and deflated when it came to him that his fantasy was just a fantasy. He still had to get himself out of this mess he’d created for himself, and if he didn’t come up with some ammunition for Roe to use against Matthew Murray he’d be out of a job.

  He passed by the sign that announced the entrance of the park, and gave his full attention to reading the green and white signs along the way. These parks were full of nooks and crannies, gravel roads and pins-and-needles trails. He had no idea which would lead him to Murray, though he had his fingers crossed that he’d find a paved lot at the end of his journey.

  He also had his fingers crossed that Chris Eaton wasn’t going to be waiting to beat him with a shovel and then bury him in a shallow grave.

  Another sign appeared. Point Graham. He followed the road and, although he was trying to display bravery, breathed a sigh of relief as a green space dappled with maple trees came into view. He circled the park, looking for Murray, but found nothing, but once he began a second go-around a blue SUV pulled up close behind him.

  He parked. The SUV took the spot next to him, and Simon watched as two men got out of the car … followed by a red-headed woman.

  ‘What the fuck?’ he murmured, and watched as the trio moved towards a picnic table.

  Matthew Murray looked relaxed, hair ungelled and curling, strolling along with a can of Coke in his hand. Behind him trailed Chris Eaton and the woman, and as they reached the table Chris took her hand. It was like watching Beauty and the Beast: Eaton was huge and dark and hairy, and the woman was absolutely tiny.

  Simon pushed his sunglasses on top of his head and got out of the car.

  The young candidate rose as Simon reached their group. He extended his hand. ‘Matthew Murray.’

  ‘Simon Reeve,’ he said, and looked from Murray, past Chris Eaton and right at the woman. ‘And you’re the Eatons, I presume.’

  Chris Eaton remained like a statue. Sophie didn’t offer her hand, but she didn’t shrink from him. She just looked up at him with big blue eyes.

  ‘So you’re more up to speed than I thought,’ said Murray, and gestured to the seat next to him. ‘I shouldn’t be too surprised. You’ve got a way about you, I’ve been told, and some friends in high places.’

  ‘You can cut the bullshit, Matthew. You’re not on the campaign trail right now, and it’ll do you no good to woo me,’ Simon said easily. There was no need to put on any of his own bullshit, either. He had no one to bullshit at this table. ‘Why did you ask to meet me?’

  ‘Because I thought it was time we did so. You have questions, and I have answers. I want to impress upon you that you’ve been putting your efforts into trying to figure out how to make it across the moat, when you could have just asked me to lower the drawbridge.’

  ‘You are aware that your opponent is paying me to make you look like a sleaze, right?’

  ‘Oh, I know that. I knew when I added my name to the ballot that Roe would try and find something to discredit me. It must be hard for men like him these days when it’s not enough to just point out I’m queer.’

  He liked Matthew Murray already.

  ‘If he thought he could get away with it, he would have.’ He glanced at the other two people at the table. ‘So go on, then. Tell me. Lower the drawbridge.’

  ‘Why don’t you start with telling us what you know?’

  Simon crossed his arms over his chest and lifted one shoulder. ‘I know that when Mr Eaton here was seventeen, he left home. I know that, prior to leaving home, he was considered a bad apple. I know that he married Mrs Eaton shortly after. I know that at least Mrs Eaton was suspected of being involved in the fire that killed Mr Eaton’s family somehow, but the downstairs neighbours confirmed that they both were at home the night the fire was set. In spite of this, the rumours persisted and continue to do so all these years later.’

  He watched the Eatons carefully, but neither registered a visible reaction, and so he went on.

  ‘I know that even though you’ve managed to keep your relationship out of the spotlight, there’s still been some spin – claims that Chris had to leave home because he was beaten for being a homosexual – but I suspect that’s not true at all. I know that while it’s common knowledge in Sussex that you and Chris are a couple, he remains married to Sophie and you’re paying her rent. Are you sick?’

  ‘Don’t speak to her,’ Murray said, his voice still melodic, but carrying a hint of menace.

  Simon raised his brows. ‘Why not? Why did you bring her here if not to talk to me?’

  ‘Because I wanted you to see that there’s a real woman who would be hurt if you decided to take what you have to the press.’

  ‘I’ve met dozens of “real women”. I sympathise with them all, but that doesn’t stop me from doing my job.’

  ‘You sound like a sociopath,’ Eaton said, his first words.

  ‘I’m a realist,’ he retorted, and looked back at Murray. ‘No matter what happens today, you’re still going up against Michael Roe,
and I can tell you that even if I walk away with a bleeding heart, he’ll still shake you like a big dog shaking a kitten. He’ll do what’s been done before, he’ll make something up. It doesn’t have to be true, but the suggestion of something and even the thinnest evidence to back it up can pack a punch. I’ve seen it done before.’

  ‘And how would you do it right now? If you just got in your car right now and had to report to Roe, what would you say?’

  Simon gave Murray a wry smile. ‘That your partner has a questionable past you’ve seemingly been trying to keep covered. That you may or may not have knowledge of a crime after the fact based on the intimate nature of your relationship with Mr Eaton. That you’re probably paying Mrs Eaton’s rent to keep her mouth shut, and that Mr Eaton remains married to her either to deflect attention from your relationship with him, or because she simply won’t give him a divorce for some reason.’

  He paused to look at the trio, and his smile widened.

  ‘How was that?’

  Murray laughed. ‘A little pathetic. You knew all that coming here, didn’t you? You could have stayed at home with that theory. You’re here because you want to know the whole truth before you put it out there. You’re worried you’ll find yourself in another mess like the one with Connell Davis.’

  ‘Oh, I think you’d have to do a hell of a lot worse than this to match the mess with Connell Davis.’

  ‘I mean you want to know all the facts before you put your spin on them. You want no surprises. That’s why you came here.’

  Sophie surprised him by speaking up. ‘And I’m about to leave if you don’t get on with it.’

  Simon glanced at her long enough to see the tightness of her mouth and the way she twisted her fingers together. She was wound like a bowstring, ready to snap back at any moment.

  He suddenly felt terrible for her, and irritated at the men who brought her here as a figurehead of whatever scandal they were hiding.

  And he was irritated at himself for prompting such a meeting.